By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2009 – “Drug Free is the Key” for the Defense Department’s Red Ribbon Week this year as it works to raise public awareness and mobilize communities to combat tobacco, alcohol and drug use among military personnel, civilians and families.
Jhane Price with the Tehama County Young Marines out of Red Bluff, Calif., recites a poem she wrote to promote living drug free during the Red Ribbon Week kickoff event at the Pentagon, Oct. 23, 2009. The Tehama County Young Marines were the recipients of the 2009 Secretary of Defense Fulcrum Shield Award. Price also sang the National Anthem at the event. DoD photo by Samantha L. Quigley (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.The observation of Red Ribbon Week begins today and continues through Oct. 31.
“Looking forward, there’s a lot of challenges in front of us,” Army Col. Ronald Shippee, director of the Drug Testing and Program Policy for Tricare Management Activity, told those gathered here today for the event’s kickoff. “Right now one of the biggest problems we’re facing is the abuse of prescription drugs. The whole country is facing this problem. We’re not alone.”
Shippee’s program encompasses more than just drug testing, he said. “To run a successful program, it’s got to be drug testing, education, prevention.”
Shippee has seen the affects of substance abuse on the military. He was assigned to a unit in Vietnam affected by drug abuse, but didn’t realize how pervasive the problem was until he got to the U.S. Army War College.
“At the War College in Carlyle [Pa.], they’ll tell you that was a near-death experience for the U.S. Army,” Shippee said. “In ’73, [the department] had an amnesty program; 16,000 guys came forward with a heroin problem.”
Today, there’s a threat of a repeat of the heroin problem as servicemembers fight in Afghanistan, Shippee said. The country’s main crop is the opium poppy, from which heroin is produced.
“We’re in Afghanistan where there’s heroin everywhere,” he said in an earlier interview. “We’ve taken an extremely aggressive approach. We now screen every [fluid sample] for heroin.
“We do 4-and-a-half million tests a year,” he added. “The operative term in our program is deterrence. We know we don’t catch everybody with deterrence. That only comes from an aggressive drug-testing program and an education and a treatment [program].”